May grant waivers to good-faith allies.
The Trump administration signaled for the first time on Friday it will
consider sanctions waivers for countries that have significantly
reduced, but not completely eliminated, their intake of Iranian oil.
It faces a November 4 deadline to reimpose harsh sanctions on Iran,
lifted in 2015 by the US under terms of an international nuclear deal
with Tehran that President Donald Trump abandoned in May. White House
officials had said over the summer they would push to bring Iranian
crude exports “down to zero” and would be unlikely to grant any waiver
exemptions, including to allies such as India and South Korea, two of
Iran’s largest oil customers.
But the administration is “in the midst of an internal process” of
considering exceptions called SRE waivers, or significant reduction
exemptions, said a government official who spoke on the condition of
anonymity.
White House National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Thursday that
the administration’s objective was that there be no waivers and “exports
of Iranian oil and gas and condensates drops to zero.” He added that
the administration would not necessarily achieve that.
The administration is “prepared to work with countries that are reducing
their imports on a case-by-case basis,” the official said.
India, second only to China in its purchases of Iranian oil, said last
week that it would buy nine million barrels from Iran in a different
currency from the US dollar. China, too, attempted in March to launch
crude futures contracts in local currency to circumvent US sanctions
barring Tehran access to the greenback.
Crude futures rose to a four-year high this past week as the market
prepares for the return of US sanctions on Iran, the world’s seventh
largest producer of oil and a significant military power in the Strait
of Hormuz, through which a third of the world’s oil supply passes each
day.Saudi Arabia’s ARAMCO has said it will make up for market demands
for crude in Iran’s place.
“The president has directed all of us in the government to come up with
steps to re-impose the economic sanctions and to do whatever else is
necessary to ensure we bring maximum pressure on the regime to stop its
malign behavior across the board – not just in the nuclear field, but
across the board,” Bolton said on Thursday.Addressing foreign
governments seeking to circumvent renewed US sanctions, he added: “As
I’ve said to them, it’s like a book that was written several decades ago
in this country– it was called something like the ‘Six Stages of
Grief.’ You know, first you have denial, then you have anger.”
“Eventually, you get to acceptance,” he added.
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